CRP Watchdogs Spotted in Denver, St. Paul

CRP watchdogs Sheila Krumholz and Massie Ritsch weren’t barking up the wrong trees these last two weeks at the national party conventions, where they spent part of their time sniffing out the money behind the scenes at the convention and most of their time engaging members of the press to tell the world about that influence. The Politico featured Sheila, CRP’s executive director, and Massie, our communications director, in an article Tuesday, describing their adventures in both Denver and St. Paul.

“The goal of the watchdogs wasn’t simply to bust up a few chummy parties between lawmakers and lobbyists, although they might like that,” Politico’s Jeanne Cummings wrote. “They went to the Denver and St. Paul conventions to make a point: Despite the new laws aimed at diminishing the influence of money on politics, the practice continues and it reaches its zenith every four years at the parties’ nominating conventions.”

The article details Sheila’s visit to one party billed as a “financial literacy event” that ended up being nothing more than a typical meet-and-greet for lobbyists and lawmakers-the type you’d have seen at any convention before this Congress prohibited lobbyists from throwing parties to honor members of Congress.

Companies that didn’t host events at the convention still had plenty of opportunities to send a (monetary) statement. According to the Campaign Finance Institute, the convention committees collected about $112 million from private donors. “Throwing a party in Washington for $50,000 or $100,000 is extraordinary in its own way,” Massie told Politico. “Putting out $1 million to subsidize these party conventions is another thing altogether.”

CRP’s representatives managed to score some major media exposure while at the conventions, appearing on NPR, ABC News Now, CNN, XM Radio and providing data and quotes for USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, National Journal and the Atlantic, among other publications. Although the conventions are over, private money continues to flow into politics, and we’ll be following it all the way to November’s elections on OpenSecrets.org.

Except for the Revolving Door section, content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License by OpenSecrets.org. To request permission for commercial use, please contact us.